A/N - There may be fics like this, but please I do not intend to still anybody else's writing! I've tried to make the storyline of this as original as possible, but bear with me on this one. :)

Disclaimer - I don't own Harry Potter.


Prologue

Harry didn't know why the glass disappeared.

He didn't know why the snake could talk to him, either. Maybe it was normal-but he doubted that. Harry Potter was anything but normal, and he knew that. Sometimes strange things would happen that he couldn't explain. Even if he could explain, it wasn't like his uncle would listen before unbuckling his belt.

Harry's eyes widened when he saw his uncle's purple face turn towards him after he and Petunia had tended to Dudley and his friend Piers. The zoo keeper was busy profusely apologizing to Petunia and offering a free ticket for the next time they visited, so nobody bat an eye when Vernon grabbed Harry by the shirt collar.

"Who do you think you are, boy, setting a serpent on my son?" he snarled.

"I-I didn't mean-"

"Don't talk back to me!" Vernon hissed. Then, quietly so that nobody could hear, he said, "Once Dudders' friend goes home, you'll get your punishment. You just wait, boy, and I'll see to it that you won't be able to walk for a week."

Harry gulped, but didn't doubt that Vernon would do such a thing for a second. After all, his uncle had done it before. When he was younger, Petunia had, at Vernon's insistence, given Harry a haircut. It wasn't good at all, and half of his head was bald and all of the hair that remained was uneven. Harry had gone to bed that night in shame, and then woke up the next morning to a whole new head of hair, as if his aunt had never cut it in the first place. When his uncle saw, he had paused his breakfast just so he could 'discipline' his nephew properly. When Harry had regained consciousness, it was well past noon.

The drive home from the zoo was tense. For Harry, at least. His hands were sweaty as he eyed his uncle and he fingered his shirt sleeve nervously. Meanwhile, Petunia was repeatedly asking if Dudley was all right, while also giving Harry dirty looks in the car mirror.

Piers and Dudley watched the television for about half an hour as they waited for Piers' mother to come and pick him up. Harry stayed in his cupboard, anxious. Vernon and Petunia were whispering in not-so-hushed tones in the hallway.

"Vernon, that was-it was-you know what. We-haven't done a good enough job, I'm afraid-"

"Pet," Vernon said in an assuring voice. Harry rolled his eyes at the ridiculous nickname. "There will be no problem. The boy will get what's coming to him, he will. All of his-abnormality--will be squashed out of him after tonight. And if he doesn't live to see the end result? It will be no problem," he repeated.

Harry visibly-or not visibly, as it was dark in his cupboard-flinched when he heard a knock on the front door of Number 4, Privet Drive. He heard voices conversing for a few moments, until he heard the door slam shut. Then it was quiet.

Would Uncle Vernon really kill me? he thought. He knew that his uncle was more than capable of doing so physically-after all, a few good beltings to head and chest would do the job, and if not, Harry was fairly certain that Vernon had a gun in his possession. Harry could be dead by the morning.

He wondered who would care, if anybody. He didn't have many friends at school, and no other family other than the Dursleys. He wondered if they would even give him a proper funeral, or resting place, or if they would just leave his body in the cupboard forever. Harry shuddered at the thought.

He jumped when his uncle opened the door to his small 'room.' Vernon looked downright giddy, like a child holding an ice cream cone. Only he was holding instead a long, leather belt in his right hand. The metal part of the buckle glowed a fiery orange. Harry supposed he had dangled it over the open flame of the fireplace beforehand. This is going to hurt, he thought.

"Take off your shirt, boy, and turn around."

Harry did what he was told. He knew from past experience that it would only be worse if he resisted. He'd tried to move out of the way, once, when he was about seven, but instead Vernon had just made the beating last even longer, and he hit him in places he knew would hurt much more than just his back.

"How dare you endanger my family?" Vernon hissed. "Making that snake attack Dudders-"

"I didn't," Harry said quietly. He looked shocked at himself as soon as the words left his mouth.

That was his mistake.

Vernon whipped him right across the shoulder, making the boy cry out in pain. The welt had just began to form when Vernon did it again, on the back this time. And again. And again.

"Stop!" Harry choked out between lashes.

"Not yet, freak," his uncle growled. "I'm not squashing it out of you…"

Harry didn't have time to think about what 'it' was before Vernon struck him again, this time on the back of his neck. He knew that had it been on the front of his neck-his throat-he certainly would've died. Harry wasn't sure if he was glad or not that he hadn't. After all, he was sure that, in death, he wouldn't feel the pain anymore. And maybe he'd see his parents again.

A thought hung in the back of his mind that maybe his parents wouldn't want to meet him, after all these years. Harry didn't see himself someone to be proud of. After all, all he ever did was submit to the neglect his aunt and uncle bestowed upon him. He rarely fought back, fearful of the consequence of doing so. He couldn't stand up to them. He wasn't brave.

After several minutes of non-stop lashing, Harry lost consciousness and felt the pain drift away. He vaguely heard his uncle snarl, "No...I'm not done with you yet…" before finding himself in a peaceful sleep, free of nightmares. Vernon, after seeing that his victim was not conscious, belted him one last time across the chest, before leaving and slamming the cupboard door shut behind him.

Harry woke hours later. He groaned and suppressed a cry of pain when he sat up, clutching his chest. He had a pounding headache, but that was certainly not the worst pain he was in at the current time. After carefully taking off his bloody shirt, Harry discovered several welts across his body from his uncle's ruthless beating.

Anger bubbled up inside him like it never had before.

He was surprised by this. Harry was rarely angry at his relatives. It didn't matter how many times they hurt him. Actually, that's a bit inaccurate-it did matter. Perhaps if the Dursleys abused him a little less, he would have more room for emotions besides fear, pain, and shame. Those were the only three he ever felt in large amounts or for extended periods of time. Until now.

Harry wanted revenge. He pushed away all of his self-deprecatory thoughts (like how his parents wouldn't want to see him when he died-of course they would). But Harry wanted something other than revenge as well: safety. Safety and independence from his terrible aunt and uncle and their beatings and starvation and lies. He didn't want anything to do with them anymore.

Picking the lock on his cupboard door with a stray paperclip he'd found, Harry made his way down the hallway of the Dursley household. It was dark and silent. He contemplated bringing a few things with him-but then again, he didn't have many possessions. He finally decided to steal some of his uncle's cash he knew that he stowed in one of the kitchen cupboards, under a piece of expensive china. He shoved the pounds into his pants pocket and continued towards the door.

"BOY!"

No. He was so close.

Vernon's face was purple with rage as his nephew stood there, beaten and bloody, about to leave. Then he noticed the cash sticking out his pocket, and lost it.

"YOU HAVE THE NERVE TO STEAL FROM ME, FREAK? MY HARD-EARNED MONEY? PETUNIA AND I RISKED SO MUCH ACCEPTING TO RAISE YOU! WE GAVE YOU A ROOF OVER YOUR HEAD, FOOD ON THE TABLE-"

"NO YOU DIDN'T!" Harry screeched. "You never fed me! I HAD TO SNEAK INTO THE KITCHEN IN THE DEAD OF NIGHT, UNCLE VERNON! You-"

But Vernon had already crossed the room and was right up next to Harry, spitting in his face as he spoke. "You listen to me," he said, his voice steely calm.

"NO, I WON'T LISTEN TO YOU ANYMORE! I'VE HAD ENOUGH!"

"Petunia and I were very charitable, taking you in the way we have! If it weren't for us, you'd be in an orphanage, or better yet, dead! You ought to be kissing our shoes! And this is how you repay us?"

Harry made to run for it again, but his uncle grabbed his shoulder before he could. It just so happened to be injured shoulder. He yelped in pain and surprise. Then, turning to Vernon, said, "LET! ME! GO!"

"NOT JUST YET, BOY! GIVE ME MY MONEY!"

"I need it more than you ever will!"

Vernon slapped his nephew across the face as hard as he could. The ten-year-old put his own hand to where the red hand-shaped mark was surely forming on his face. A strange sense of power surged through him. He raised his arms, first covering his face, then gesturing towards Vernon forcefully. "GET BACK!"

It was if a small explosion occurred right in front of the man. Vernon was blasted backwards and thrown five feet into the air before hitting the wall with a satisfying crunch. Harry didn't even bother wondering where the power had come from, or if Vernon was injured. Instead, he gazed at the unresponsive figure now laying on the ground and hissed, "Goodbye."


Albus Dumbledore woke with a start.

It was very early in the morning and the man had been deep in sleep when some unexplained force seemed to startle him awake. Knowing that he would not be able go back to sleep now, he got out of bed.

Albus wandered about the headmaster's office at Hogwarts for what seemed like hours, trying to figure out what was wrong. He checked all of his contraptions carefully and found nothing. Until he got to the last one.

The last was a tracking device he had made to monitor young Harry Potter a decade previously, after the boy had been placed at Number 4, Privet Drive. It showed his heart rate and other things of the like, as well as his location within Number 4 (if he wasn't in the house, it just showed him as Elsewhere). The only thing it needed to work was for Harry Potter to be a) alive, b) living with his relatives, or c) under the age of 17.

When the contraption showed no signs of working at all, Albus immediately eliminated the third option, for obvious reasons. His breathing accelerated when he realized that that meant that he was either dead or no longer under his mother's protection. So Harry was either already killed by Death Eaters, or most likely about to be.

He'd pay a visit to the Dursley residence in the morning, he decided. Now, he needed to contact the Order. "Expecto Patronum." A silvery phoenix burst out of his wand and looked at its caster for instructions. "Go tell Cornelius Fudge that there is an emergency regarding the Boy Who Lived."


Please review! Also I will try to update as often as I can, but writing words is hard, so no promises.